The snow blanketed the fields, a foot deep in most places. Winter had come, somewhat earlier than typical, but the farmers had worked quickly; no rice lay under the sheet of white. It had been harvested, some before it was truly ripe, and stored, ready to be sent to the Isawa when the roads cleared. Most everyone was inside, around a pot of warm tea, or a bottle of warm sake. The few outside were monks, and were tending to a large fire, preparing to celebrate the coming New Year.

Already Saru had helped as his sisters and mother scattered the soybeans around their home, and he now waited patiently, sipping his tea. His mother had invited over Gocho, the farmer that lived in the next house, and his son and daughter. His son, Jocho, was seven years older than Saru, and already had three children. His daughter, Miki, was Saru’s age, and unwed.

Clearly, as his mother’s reasoning went, Miki and Saru needed to marry, and start having children. Fifteen, by her accounting, was too old already. By Saru’s accounting however, it was anything but. He wanted adventure; the story of Toku was his clear favorite. His father, in response, had tried to pretend that growing rice was plenty adventurous on its own.

So it was that Saru’s life truly began that day when a strange samurai came shouting through the town, headed straight for the roaring fire. His grandfather, Achiro, was the village elder, and hurried out the door to meet with the Samurai. Moments later they came into the house, and the visitor was taken to the meeting room. Saru crept close to hear the conversation.

“Honored Samurai,” Achiro said, a note of protest in his voice, “both the lumber and the rice belong to this village’s lord, Isawa Kogare-sama. We cannot give it away without authorization from the Governor. A thousand apologies, Daijo-sama.”

A grunt of derision was heard, “Of course not, Achiro. But the frost came early; everyone knows that crops tend to be lost in these situations. Isawa-san would understand if the crop was less than expected. And of course, after a restful night’s sleep, were I to forget this pouch, I do not believe it would bother me enough to come back and search for it.”

“Of course, Daijo-sama, all you say is true. However, the rice does belong to Isawa-sama; neither I, nor anyone in this village, can release it to you.” Achiro was firm and insistent, and his comment carried that note of finality that it takes decades to cultivate.

A note fully ignored by the ronin. “You will give me that rice, or my friends and I will come to take a personal inventory of this village’s stores… and perhaps its women as well. There were a few pretty ones I saw on my way in; the geisha houses closer to our town are short on fresh girls.”

“Dai… Daijo-sama! I am sorry, but it is quite impossible for us to give you the rice. We will supply you with what lumber we can spare; no amount of koku will let us part with the rice.” Achiro cleared his throat, and Saru crept back as footsteps neared the entry to the meeting room.

Daijo walked out, gripping the hilt of his katana. He glared down at Saru as he passed, then stopped next to Miki, and bent down next to her. “Don’t sleep heavy tonight; I expect to hear you scream.” He inhaled deeply, and with a chuckle, rose and left.

Miki began to tremble, and then cry. Saru’s mother glared at him expectedly, and so he went to her and sat down. Instantly her arms were around his neck, and his tunic’s shoulder was getting soaked. “There, there,” he said, somewhat mechanically, and patted her on the back. He caught his mother’s smile as she glanced over her shoulder before entering the meeting room to speak with her father.

<^>

The moon reflected off the snow, giving his night a glow in addition to the campfire. Masashi walked a brief patrol around the perimeter, letting his eyes first adjust to the night by standing with his back to the fire. After the walk, he set up the yurt he had requisitioned from the Unicorn when he had been there with Kuni Khunum years ago. Though it was not very usual for a Magistrate, it was the best tent he’d ever had.

For the last three days, he’d been tracking a small band of ronin as they made their way towards Ahi Mura. One of his fellow magistrates in Nanashi Mura had sent out a message by falcon; the leader, Daijo, was a particularly violent ronin who had recently been gathering like-minded followers. Recently, this band had decided to take a town into their protection, and left to ‘visit’ Ahi Mura, and procured some supplies on their way out.

He recently had found a dead horse, one that rather fit the description provided by Hekaro. It also had a brand credited to the Nanashi Mura Magistrates, marking it as their property. From there he was able to pick up the trail; it was not disguised and quite easy to follow. Masashi knew he was several days behind them, because every camp he’d found so far had a layer of soft snow over it. There had been no fresh snowfall since he’d found the horse.

Having seen no danger, he put a couple of branches on the fire. They snapped and popped, still not fully dried from the snow, but the fire continued just fine. Masashi ducked into the yurt, and laced it up with the silk cords. He placed his daisho and the tachi on their stands, and set his few carved ancestor statues in front of each. After a few prayers, he lay back, wrapping himself in a woolen blanket. Comfortable, he drifted off.

He dreamt of a woman, and she was just barely that. She could only have been out of her gempukku for months, but she carried herself with the confidence of years. Her red hair wreathed her face, sticking to the sun-bronzed skin slick with sweat. Her three-pronged spear was held at the ready, as she moved into another kata.

He saw himself there, much younger as well, watching from the side. He loved her, he knew. Her perfection of form, her energy, her dedication to honor and to the Lion, her friendship, and every bit of her being was made to complement his. She was stripped down to a wrap top and pants, and wore her bracers and boots. She completed her kata and turned towards him, a smile tugging at her slim lips.

She walked towards him now, and then she was next to him, looking up at him. Her eyes, brown and warm, were flecked with gold, perfectly unique. She touched his cheek, her fingers sending a tingle down his back. He took her hand in his, and she leaned her head back, standing on her toes to reach to him. He could feel her breath on his lips…

And he awoke with a start, shooting straight up from the mat. Disoriented, he looked around, taking a moment to remember where he was. Rubbing his eyes to clear the sleep, he unlaced his tent, and took a deep breath of the crisp morning air. He took a tin cup, and filled it with snow, and put it over the warm ashes of last night’s fire. Then he grabbed a stick, stirred up the ashes, and put one of the dried logs on it.

Masashi stared at the snow in the cup, watching it melt. His mind drifted to her, the woman from his dreams. He had dreamt of her often throughout his life, but he didn’t know who she was. She was strong, and his dreams of her rarely repeated. She must be someone from a past life; he knew that he had lived at least one previous life.

Once the cup was steaming, he poured it into a small metal pot, through the berry tea from his brother. While he let it steep, he rolled up his mat and blanket, and took apart his daisho stand. He poured the tea into a ceramic cup, rinsed out the pot, and then finished packing while he sipped the strong, dark tea. After rinsing that cup out, he struck out, following the tracks.

<^>

The bell from the temple was ringing, waking all the farmers and their families. Saru raced to the door, and looked out into the night.

The village was on fire.

More to the point, the two storage sheds closest to the edge of town were burning, but the threat of it spreading was clearly enormous. He rushed out into the snow, grabbing a large spade from the closet before he made it out the door. Running to the sheds he started tossing snow onto the fire. Several of the monks joined him, with one of the others trying to spread snow on the nearest shed.

An arrow suddenly took the monk next to Saru in the back, and he stumbled against the burning building. Silently, he fell to the ground and did not rise as his flesh started to burn as well. Then four ronin ran into the light, wearing dark scarves around their faces. Only one carried a bow; two of them carried vicious-looking thick blades, and the last carried his katana, drawn. Even with his face covered, Saru recognized Daijo.

“Take the stocks, as much as you can carry!” Daijo shouted, and they pulled on cloaks covered in snow. They rushed a shed that was not yet burning, and no one stood in their way. The bell continued to toll, softer now, fading away, as the monk that tended it came to the sheds to help. He was accompanied by the one doshin that served in the village. The doshin, Fukari, carried his yari and was still strapping down the left side of his armor.

“That shed!” Saru shouted, pointing. Fukari waved to show he heard, and then ran to the shed’s entrance. As the first bandit ran out with a sack of rice, the doshin lunged, driving his yari into the man’s arm. He turned with a shout, and grabbed the shaft.

“Wrong move, peasant,” he growled, and struck Fukari on the chin, tearing the weapon away and tossing it into the snow. He brought his knee up, and drove it into Fukari’s stomach, then shoved him back. Daijo and the other two bandits came out, each with a sack of rice. “He got my arm,” the bandit said, pointing at the blood on the snow.

A number of the monks ran over, surrounding the four bandits. The head monk, Buno, knelt next to Fukari, and helped him to his feet. “Put the grain down, and nobody else needs to be hurt,” one of the others said to Daijo. “Leave this village alone.”

Daijo nodded, and slowly lowered the sack to the ground. Just before it touched the ground, he shifted, and threw the bag one handed at the monk that spoke. It hit him squarely, knocking him down. Daijo pulled his katana free, and dropped into a fighting stance. Two of the monks rushed him, one coming high, the other low.

The bandit shifted back a step, moving aside from the monks’ path. He then stepped in again, swinging sharply with an upward left slash. He caught one right above the hip, and his blade tore through the monk, coming out his other side with a red splash onto the snow. His swing caught the second monk’s arm, though he had already begun to shift away. Daijo took up his stance again, facing the monk.

A third monk leapt at him from behind. Daijo heard the snow rustle, and turned, bringing his elbow into his face, the momentum from the lunge increasing the force of the strike. That monk dropped to the ground, unconscious. Daijo faced back to his other opponent, and took a strike right in the chest. He stumbled, dropping his guard.

The thick blade one of the other bandits carried burst through the monk’s chest from behind. Daijo scowled as his colleague, “About time, Wei.” Wei favored him with just a shrug, then the two turned back to back. The four remaining monks stood in a semi-circle, with Fukari recovering his yari off to the side. Daijo and Wei stepped to opposite end of the monks, and struck in. They moved fast, taking down the two monks on the end without effort.

The one facing Wei stepped in, ducking low under his slash, and grabbed the handle as he came up. Wei struggled with him for a second, trying to wrestle control of the weapon back. The monk had too firm of a hold, though, for him to break, so Wei gave him a quick headbutt, snapping the monk’s nose. As the monk stumbled back, the bandit brought the thick sword down, straight into the monk’s head. He turned back to the last monk to see Daijo wiping his katana clean on that corpse’s pants.

“Next time we come, remember this lesson,” Daijo said, looking levelly at Fukari.

The doshin, in turn, leveled his yari at the lead bandit. “That rice is not yours. I will not let you take it. And even if you kill me, Isawa-sama will send out guards to track you down. You will not escape.”

“Once we cross the river, peon,” Wei snarled, “your Isawa guards can’t follow us.”

Daijo glared at Wei, and then recovered his sack of grain from the body of the monk he’d knocked out. “Let’s get moving.”

Fukari lunged, stabbing the sack of rice with his yari, and the rice begun to spill out onto the snow. “You cannot have it. It is not yours.” Wei charged forward, slicing through the yari, and shoving the doshin down with his shoulder. Fukari rolled, then came back up in a crouch. Wei was on him again before he could stand, striking the doshin’s face with the heavy handle of the blade.

As he went down again, he struck out with his foot, dislocating Wei’s knee. The bandit collapsed, shouting in pain. Fukari grabbed the stout blade, and brought it down into Wei’s throat, silencing his cries of pain. He rose, holding the blade uncertainly in both hands. “Put. Down. The. Rice.”

The twang of a bow rang out over the crackling fire, and an arrow buried itself deep into Fukari’s chest. It was quickly followed by a second, but Fukari had already died on his feet. The blade fell from his lifeless fingers, and landed in the snow with a muffled thump. He dropped to his knees, and slowly fell back, his arms spread to the side.

“NO!” Saru shouted, and started to run forward. A strong pair of hands caught him from behind, and held him fast. He struggled, trying to get free, but couldn’t break his grandfather’s grip. He glared at Daijo, tears starting to form in his eyes. “You won’t get away with this.”

Daijo laughed, “Yes I will, child. I have before, and I will again. We’ll see you soon.” He picked up the sack of rice that Wei dropped, glanced at the dead body of one of his former bandits, and then the three turned and left, the rice sheds continuing to burn and light up the night.

To be continued...